Search Results

A model with private information is constructed that supports conventional arguments for a government monopoly in supplying circulating media of exchange. The model also yields predictions, including rate-of-return dominance of circulating media of exchange, that are consistent with observations from free banking regimes and fiat money regimes. In a laissez faire banking equilibrium, fiat money is not valued, and the resulting allocation is not Pareto optimal. However, if private agents are restricted from issuing circulating notes, there exists an equilibrium with valued fiat money that Pareto dominates the laissez faire equilibrium and is constrained Pareto optimal.

A model of a labor market is developed in which agents possess private information about their own productivities. This has the property that firms may use unemployment to create appropriate self-selection incentives. When this is the case, existence of an equilibrium may require that employment be stochastic. This is true even though all uncertainty is necessarily resolved prior to hiring. Even when existence is not at issue, it may be privately as well as socially desirable to randomize employment prospects. Finally, it is argued that this "adverse selection" approach is consistent with traditional "Keynesian" approaches to macroeconomics, but avoids some of the arbitrary features of several "Keynesian models."

A model of a labor market is developed in which agents possess private information about their marginal products. As a result, involuntary unemployment may arise as a consequence of attempts by firms to create appropriate self-selection incentives. Moreover, employment lotteries may arise for the same reason despite the fact that, in equilibrium, there is no uncertainty in the model. When employment is random, this is both privately and socially desirable. Finally, it is shown that the unemployment that arises is consistent with (a) pro-cyclical aggregate real wages and productivity, (b) employment that fluctuates (at individual and aggregate levels) much more than real wages.

Previous authors have argued that the optimal monetary policy is contractionary. If buyers value consumption substantially more than sellers, there is some randomness and informational constraints make asset trading useful, we show that there is an incentive compatible expansionary policy that dominates all incentive compatible contractionary policies.